LA Times to cut 40 to 50 newsroom jobs, others

The Tribune Co., struggling with declining revenue, Wednesday said it would cut staff by 400 to 500 people companywide, or around 2% of the Chicago-based media company's workforce. At the Los Angeles Times, 100 to 150 jobs will be eliminated, 40 to 50 in the newsroom, through a combination of attrition, voluntary buyouts and, if necessary, layoffs, Publisher David D. Hiller said’

Tribune Chief Executive Sam Zell announced the news this morning in one of his frequent "Talk to Sam" e-mails to all employees. The job cuts are focused on the corporate staff and the company's nine newspapers, including, besides The Times, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday in New York, the Orlando Sentinel, the Baltimore Sun and the Hartford Courant.

The decision was reached during meetings Monday and Tuesday among senior executives at Tribune's Chicago headquarters, said Hiller’

For the moment, Tribune's broadcast division, consisting of KTLA-TV Channel 5 and nearly two dozen other stations around the country, will be spared. Fox TV veteran Ed Wilson, hired just last week to run the broadcast operation, will be given time to evaluate his business and make his own personnel decisions later, according to a Tribune executive familiar with the situation.

The job eliminations will come swiftly. Hiller said all the people affected would be out of the company by the end of March.

As in previous buyouts and layoffs at the L.A. Times, most departing employees will receive two weeks' pay per year of service, but this time there are two new elements. First, Hiller said that any buyouts next year would involve far smaller severance packages -- probably one week's pay per year of service. "Anyone who's been thinking about taking advantage of such a program might want to think seriously about this one," he said. Second, the cash to finance the buyouts will come from the overfunded portion of Tribune employees' cash-balance pension plan. Hiller said that Tribune officials have determined that the defined-benefit plan has about $300 million more than it needs to meet future obligations to retirees.

Click on the headlin to read the full story by Thomas S. Mulligan in the Los Angeles Times